Thursday, July 20, 2006

Caramel Honeycomb Cheesecake Recipe

This rich cheesecake has a delicate caramel flavour with concentrated honeycomb-flavoured areas due to the dissolved honeycomb pieces. The texture is smooth and creamy. We serve thin slices of the cheesecake with whipped cream and/or vanilla ice cream.

Serves at least 10.

We use a 20ml tablespoon and 250ml measuring cup for all of our recipes.

Base250g packet Scotch Finger (shortbread style) biscuits95g butter, melted (the amount you need may vary, depending on the type of biscuits you use)

Place honeycomb bars in the refrigerator to allow the chocolate to harden.

You will need a round springform cake pan with a diameter of 20cm (top inside measurement) and a depth of at least 6cm. Grease the base and side of the pan. Line the base and side of the pan with non-stick baking paper.

Finely crush the biscuits in a food processor or blender. If you used a food processor to crush the biscuits, add the melted butter to the biscuit crumbs and process until well combined. If you used a blender, it is probably easier to tip the biscuit crumbs into a medium bowl and stir in the melted butter.

Firmly press the biscuit mixture over the base and at least 4.5cm up the side of the prepared pan (we use the back of a spoon to do this). Cover the pan and refrigerate while preparing caramel and filling.

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Adjust the oven rack to the lower-middle position, so the centre of the cheesecake will be in the centre of the oven.

Gently hit unopened packets of honeycomb bars with the smooth side of a meat mallet until bars are crushed into small pieces. Empty the honeycomb into a small bowl and set aside until required.Using an electric mixer, electric hand-held beaters, or a food processor, beat cream cheese and caster sugar together in a large bowl. Stop the machine occasionally and use a spatula to scrape the side and base of the bowl. Beat until the mixture is completely smooth.Add the eggs to the cream cheese mixture one at a time, beating until combined after each addition.

Add the sour cream, cream, lemon juice and cooled caramel mixture to the cream cheese mixture. Beat until the ingredients are well combined.

Pour half of the cheesecake mixture over the biscuit base.Sprinkle crushed honeycomb over cheesecake mixture.Spoon the remaining cheesecake mixture over the honeycomb.Place the cheesecake on a baking tray to catch any butter that may leak from the springform pan. Bake cheesecake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. The cheesecake may be cracked and risen; it should still be wobbly in the centre.

Allow cheesecake to cool in the pan for two hours at room temperature.Leave cheesecake in the pan, and place in an airtight container or cover pan with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until completely cold.

When adapting a cheesecake recipe to make mini cheesecakes, we increase the amount of base (our mini cheesecakes have a greater ratio of base to filling than our large cheesecakes). We would probably use at least 250g of biscuits and 82g butter for the base.

We can't be certain of the correct baking time as we haven't made mini versions of this cheesecake. However, we generally bake mini cheesecakes (made in a muffin tin) for about 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (160 degrees Celsius fan-forced). We allow them to cool out of the oven.

For cheesecake, we usually prefer not to use a fan-forced oven.

We would make the mini cheesecakes up to a few days ahead. We prefer not to freeze them as freezing can affect their texture.

Only problem was that when I put the Violet Crumble in the half filled tin and then poured in the remaining mixture, the voilet crumble floated to the surface :(

It made the top of the cheesecake a chocolate/brown colour.

Maybe I broke the pieces of VC up too much or not enough. I think the recipe would work very well without the VC anyway :)

Thanks for all the recipes! Every one is fantastic, the reviews are so good. So far I have had hits with this cheesecake, the zuccini slice and the caramel slice (the first one i've made that tasted sooooo good!)

We bake the cheesecake in a 20cm diameter springform cake pan. If you have a fan-forced oven, we recommend baking the cheesecake at 140 degrees Celsius. When baked in a fan-forced oven, the cheesecake may be more likely to crack, but it should still taste the same.

This cheesecake was absolutely delicious. The 20cm spring form pan is the perfect size for the cheesecake. Just be conscious to read the recipe properly as the first time I made it my violet crumble floated to the top. You are supposed to SPOON in the second half of the mixture, not POUR it in. It still tasted good. The second time I spooned it in and it was fine. Thanks for the recipes ladies, I love the step by step pictures and every recipe I have used from the site has been divine.

i had the same issue with the honeycombs floating to the top and not looking great (they cracked my tops). But I made a chocolate ganache with half cream and half chocolate, sprinkled some pretty honeycomb on top and it looked pretty gorgeous.

I also substituted the sour cream with cream and extra lemon juice. What resulted was a very rich cheesecake...which i felt was a little too dense for my liking. i may try to whip the cream next time before folding into the mix to make it lighter..

To the person who asked about the cheesecake sinking: If the cheesecake is baked in a fan-forced oven, or at a hotter temperature, it is more likely to rise in the oven and then fall on cooling. If you are unable to turn your oven fan off, we suggest that you try baking the cheesecake at 140 degrees Celsius. Another possible explanation for the cheesecake sinking a lot is the incorporation of too much air when making the filling. A food processor would probably incorporate less air than an electric mixer. If you used an electric mixer to make the cheesecake, you could try switching to a food processor. Either way, ensure that you don't beat the mixture more than necessary.

Hi Carrie

An electric hand mixer would not be suitable for crushing the biscuits. If you don't have a food processor or blender, place the biscuits in a strong plastic bag (a zip lock bag is ideal) and roll over the biscuits with a rolling pin until they are finely crushed.

Made this by following the recipe ever so carefully or so I thought, as many of you made the mistake to pour in the 2nd half of the mixture resulting in floating crunchie pieces...the top was cracked from too much choc at the surface which I hidden with whipped cream. The tast was devine & will be making again taking note to spoon in the 2nd part of the mixture to see how it turns out. :)